Rock of Dunamase is a once-mighty medieval fortress just off the motorway

From Strongbow to Parnell to disrepair — the Rock of Dunamase is crumbling but still worth exploring

The Rock of Dunamase. Pictures: Neil Jackman 

There is a certain Tolkien-esque feeling when you first spot the Rock of Dunamase perching above the well-tended plains of Laois.

Much of what can be seen today is the shattered ruin of a once-mighty medieval fortress, but the site has earlier origins. It first appears in recorded history when the abbot of Terryglass sought shelter here in AD 844 when it was a fort known as Dún Masc. The defences of this earlier incarnation did not hold and the abbot was slaughtered by the Vikings.